


These Arms Are All I Have

by onewarmline



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: AND SMOOCHES, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Gore (off-screen), D&D Influences, F/M, Fucking Bards, Just Tiefling Things, With Some Gratuitous Liberties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 15:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16915518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onewarmline/pseuds/onewarmline
Summary: Dan means to travel the road in an entirely ordinary way, and ends up somewhere – with someone – he couldn't have expected.





	These Arms Are All I Have

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheseusInTheMaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/gifts).



Cold.

Dan woke up cold, the kind of cold that went all the way into your bones. He was flat on his back, his bedroll placed on top of a straw-filled mattress that offered almost nothing in the way of comfort. 

How strange; he didn't remember falling asleep in it. 

He had left the city in broad daylight, taking care that he wouldn’t be alone in the woods after nightfall. But it was well dark now, and he didn’t have the faintest idea whose bed this was, or where it was. 

Dan blinked into the lantern light, trying to piece together the hours but unable to recall them. It seemed like a humble place, and though he was shivering under a thick wool blanket, the atmosphere was comforting and warm. A fire was lit in the hearth, low and steady, and lamp light reflected in glass jars and ceramic cups and bowls. He wondered who would have a home like this, and how they had come to find him. 

He didn’t have to wonder long. The sound of a latch turning caught his attention, and he managed to sit up on one elbow just in time to see a cloaked figure scuttle through the heavy, creaking door and close it quickly behind them. They pressed their back flat against the wood and held their breath, as if waiting for something… and then the moment passed. One pale hand reached up for the hood of the cloak and began to pull it down. 

“Um,” Dan said. “Hello?” 

“Shit!” The figure cursed under their breath and let go of their hood as if it had burned them. Dan still couldn’t see their face, but the voice was high and bright. “I mean. Um. It’s good that you’re awake.” 

“Is it?” Dan asked. “What happened? Where am I?” 

“Well, you’re in my home,” the figure said. 

“Right, your home.” Dan said, after a pause. “Did I, um, come here?” 

It was the figure’s turn to pause. They stepped forward a little, but angled themselves away from the lamps, with their back to the hearth. He still couldn’t see their face, which was not making him less nervous. “What do you remember?” 

“Little,” Dan admitted. He tried to push himself upright for a better look, but instantly crumpled. Pain, the worst he’d ever felt, flashed through him like an ember catching kindling. It radiated out from his belly, and he instinctively grabbed for it. His fingers found purchase on bandages, or something improvised to be so. 

“Shh, shh, it’s alright.” Suddenly the figure was there, right next to him, gently rolling him onto his back. “Just lie still. You’ve still got a lot of healing to do yet.” 

“What– what–” Dan desperately tried to form a question, but he couldn't think straight. 

“Just rest now,” the figure assured him. 

The pain swallowed Dan whole, and he fell back against the bed with a sigh, lost again to the cold and dark. 

  


* * *

  


Dan woke again to the smell of something rich and warm hovering just under his nose. 

He made a perplexed noise and opened one eye to find the hooded figure sitting on a small stool next to him, holding a bowl. 

“Well, that’s a relief,” said the figure. “You slept like the dead for the whole day.” 

“A day…?” Dan frowned, trying to remember. This place had felt like a dream, which was odd; Dan rarely dreamed, or dreamed vividly enough to remember them. 

The figure helped him to sit up enough that he could eat, which felt easier than his last attempt, and inclined their head toward the bowl. “You’ll need some nourishment if you’re going to get better.” 

“Oh. Um. Thank you.” Dan reached out to take it, but his hands shook like leaves. 

“Here.” The figure held the bowl up to his lips, and though Dan felt embarrassed at his frailty, he accepted the help. The broth was hearty and tasted of mushrooms and herbs. The aftertaste that lingered on his tongue was medicinal, but not harsh, and he downed it all in moments. He was hungrier than he realized. 

The figure put the bowl down next to their feet. “That’s good to see. Let’s be sure you can keep that down, and I’ll fix you another bowl.” 

“Thank you,” Dan said quietly, He still couldn’t make out anything about their face; he turned his head to try and see something, anything. 

The figure pulled back in their hood, lips and chin visible and nothing more. He could see pale skin, and features that seemed feminine, but that didn’t mean anything. 

“Why do you hide from me?” he asked. 

“I hide from everyone. It’s nothing personal,” the figure replied. 

“You don’t have to,” Dan said. 

The figure made a wistful noise. “That’s very kind of you. But it’s better this way.”

“Alright.” Dan wasn’t in any shape to argue, but his curiosity hadn’t left him. “Whatever it is, you can trust me. You have my word.” 

“Oh?” The figure sounded amused. “And what is your word to me?” 

That was a fair point. “Well, if my word is worth anything to you, you have it.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

Dan gestured vaguely at his abdomen, which was still a dull ache even when he didn’t try to move. “I don’t suppose you can tell me how all of this happened?” 

“You don’t remember?” asked the figure.

Dan shook his head. “I seem to be missing a few… hours? Or days?”

“I don’t have much for you on that account, I’m afraid. I found you just outside. You had lost a lot of blood. And other things,” the figure said, in a way that was a little too matter of fact for Dan’s taste. 

Dan looked down at the bandages, stained red but mostly dried. “So you found a bloody mess of a stranger outside… and you healed him?” 

The figure looked away. “Well. It’s nothing, really.” 

“It was… is my life, and I’m grateful to still have it.” Dan smiled, even though the figure wasn’t looking at him. “If I can’t see your face, then may I know your name? To thank you properly?” 

The figure sighed softly and seemed to relent. “Holly,” she said, after a pause. 

“Thank you, Holly,” Dan said sincerely. “I’m Daniel – Dan to my friends.” 

Holly said nothing further, just patted his cheek with pale hands, slightly calloused with dirt under her short nails and turned away. 

As she did, Dan didn’t try to peer any further into her hood. He wouldn’t be going anywhere for awhile. He could earn her trust, he thought, in time. 

  


* * *

  


Dan awoke on the third dawn to a loud clatter and a panicked squawk, startling him out of bed and onto the hard, worn wooden floor. He inhaled through his teeth and tried to pull himself upright, but he couldn’t quite get his legs. There was still a lot of mending to do, it seemed. 

“Waitwaitwait – hold on, let me just–” 

Holly was right by his side before he knew it, arms tucked under his armpits to help him get leverage. He clamored backwards, trying to get purchase on the edge of the bed. It took all his strength to perch there, breathing heavily, and he looked up at Holly to thank her again. 

And for the first time, in the faintest light of sunrise and dying glow of the night’s fire, Dan could see her face clearly. 

The thing that caught his attention first was her horns. They didn’t curl quite like a ram, but didn’t branch quite like a deer; instead, they followed the line of her head and turned down toward the back of her skull, as polished and sharp as obsidian. Her dusky violet hair was short and kept, a little haphazardly, as though she trimmed it herself. 

Her sharp green eyes reminded him of the sea glass on the shore, vibrant but worn down over time. There were little fissures of black in her irises where the darkness bled through. 

Dan stared mutely, trying to make sense of the sight as the fog of sleep cleared his consciousness. 

“This is usually the part where people scream,” Holly said softly. 

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Dan replied. 

“Oh.” That clearly wasn’t what Holly had expected. She was kneeling still, at eye level with him, looking him up and down out of curiosity. 

Dan noticed a pigeon on her shoulder, its feathers puffed, giving him an oddly suspicious eye. Had Holly always had a pigeon? Had he just forgotten? He hadn’t exactly had a steel trap of a memory before, but it had become very difficult to keep things straight lately.

“I’m sorry I caught you out,” he said. “I mean, you were hiding for a reason, after all.” 

“Mostly the screaming.” Holly stood back up, brushing some of the dirt off her knees. “Regular folk don’t really know what to make of the infernal.” 

As far as Dan had understood – until now, at least – fiends and their kin were all stories to scare children out of making mischief at night. He’d certainly never met one before. 

He wouldn’t have expected them to be this nice. 

Dan folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them. “I don’t mean to sound ignorant, but I don’t have much of a choice. Rescuing a wandering idiot like me from mortal danger seems… out of character.” 

Holly smiled, a little sad, and Dan could see the points of her very sharp canines. “So I’ve been told.” 

“I see.” 

“No, I don’t imagine that you do.” Holly patted Dan gently on his bare knee, poking out from the shredded hem of his britches. It made his breath catch in his throat, and he tried to disguise it with a cough. 

“Oh, you really did a number on yourself when I startled you. Here,” she said, helping him lay back in the bed again. “I was about to put breakfast on when I dropped the kettle.” 

As Dan laid his head back down on a pillow stuffed with what he could only imagine was pigeon feathers, something occurred to him. “Holly, you… don’t have a second bed, do you?”

Holly looked startled, and then almost abashed. Her hands disappeared into the sleeves of an old, oversized sweater. “No. Just that one.” 

“Where–?” Dan started to ask. 

“I’ve been making do,” she said simply. “You needed it more.” 

Dan shook his head. “Tonight, you take it. My bedroll is perfectly good on the floor.” 

Holly scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” 

“Then we’ll share it,” Dan countered. That felt bold – too bold, perhaps – but he’d said it and meant it. 

Holly’s cheeks turned bright pink, but she laughed, brassy and discordant. “Maybe,” she relented, and went about resuming the breakfast she’d abandoned in the commotion.

Dan was finally strong enough to feed himself, and he devoured warm porridge with a little milk and a handful of berries Dan didn’t recognize, round and as black as her horns. Like everything else in Holly’s home, it was modest and comforting, imperfect and genuine. 

He tried to look around discreetly as he ate, finally hale enough to look around and observe what had become his home. Everything was either clearly handmade or scavenged, repaired where necessary. The home itself was bigger than he’d imagined, but still a tight space for more than one person. It was full to the rafters with… well, everything. Pots and pans, tools for carpentry and farming, trinkets and mementos. One corner was clearly the favored nesting place of the pigeon still perched on Holly’s shoulder, which was still looking at him warily. 

“Careful,” Holly warned playfully when she noticed their staring contest. “Feathers gets awfully mad at strangers. And you’re barely s strong enough to hold yourself up.” 

There was something about the way she said ‘mad’, making two syllables out of it, that Dan found indescribably charming. 

“I will give Feathers a respectful berth,” Dan said with mock solemnity.

“See that you do,” Holly replied in kind, before dissolving into giggles. 

The sound made Feathers coo and puff up, and he stopped glaring (if pigeons could do such a thing) at Dan and seemed to relax. Dan was grateful for that, if for no other reason than knowing he wouldn’t wake up covered in shit. 

When they were done eating, Holly busied herself with daily chores, leaving Dan alone with his scattered, blurry thoughts. He still couldn’t recall how he went from walking along a well-traveled road in broad daylight to dying on a tiefling woman’s front porch. Wild animals kept clear of the road during the day. Had he strayed from it? For what purpose? And for how long? 

Dan sighed, leaning back gingerly to make himself comfortable. He tried arranging himself in a way that would make room for Holly while not causing him a great deal more pain; it would be a tight fit, but they could manage. 

Assuming, of course, that she didn’t think him some kind of lech for offering.

Dan finally swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched. He'd only been laid up a couple of days (that he could remember, he thought darkly) and was feeling a little weak. 

Holly warmed some water and left it for him alongside a clean cloth and a bar of soap, with a fond smile. For a time, she disappeared to give him privacy while he washed, slow and careful. He didn't dare unwrap the bandages; he wouldn't have been able to wrap them again on his own, and he was a little afraid of what he'd see underneath. 

Washing away the dirt of the road and the dried blood under his nails him feel clearer of mind and a little heartier, and he was able to change into his spare clothes without much trouble before Holly returned, feeling more like a whole person.

Holly came back, hood over her head, with a basket under her arm full of mushrooms, berries, and chicken eggs. She didn't strike Dan as the kind of feral demon-kin he'd been warned about as a child that raided hen houses when naughty children didn't tend to their chores. 

A tiefling with her own chicken coop was, in the scheme of things, not the oddest thing he'd encountered. 

“It's good to see you look so well,” she said, dropping the hood. Feathers appeared under her collar and puffed up, cooing softly. 

“It’s good to feel well.” Dan got to his feet, carefully, and was relieved that he didn’t wobble very much. “Is there anything I can do?” 

“Oh no, I couldn’t ask–”

“You didn’t,” Dan pointed out. “I offered.” 

Holly shook her head and sighed. “Fine, fine.” She hung her cloak up at the door and began rummaging through her basket, eventually producing boughs of a plant he didn’t recognize, that smelled turpeny but still pleasant. She set them on the table, along with a spool of twine, and showed him how to bundle the boughs to be dried. 

As he did so, she sat down in a chair beside him and began separating the mushrooms, some to be dried and stored, some they would eat later. It seemed like Holly did more foraging than hunting. He wasn’t especially skilled at either; he made do with rations on any journey longer than a day.

How far was he from home now, he wondered? How far from his destination? It felt like his uncertainty should have given him more pause, and maybe he just wasn’t thinking clearly yet, but in Holly’s company, working side by side in a comfortable silence, it didn’t seem to matter much. 

Dan did a respectable job of copying Holly’s work in bundling the herbs, and while she refused to let him get up on the ladder to hang them from the rafters (even if he had nearly a foot of height on her), he did his best to steady the ladder “just in case”. 

The sun was setting before Dan knew it, and Holly occupied herself with tidying the space, putting away the bandages and healing components, sweeping the floor and washing some dishes. Every time he offered again to help, Holly refused him, politely but firmly. He didn’t feel like sleeping – it was all he’d done for days. Feeling the itch to do something, he dug around in his pack and found a lute, no worse for the wear than when he’d left. 

At first he just picked at a melody idly, just for the feel of it, and then the chords became clearer, something he’d been writing just for himself in quiet moments. It caught Holly’s attention, but she was busy with the hearth and said nothing. 

_“I can't say a true thing,_  
_It’s hard to be that honest;_  
_I know you’re not asking,_  
_But I told you that I promised;_  


_There’s always two thoughts,_  
_One after the other:_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not;_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not…”_

 _“I’m alone, no you’re not;_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not…_

Dan wordlessly hummed between the verses, and softly, so softly that he could barely hear it, Holly found a harmony underneath him and began to hum along. It was timid, self-conscious, but beautiful still. 

_“I know I’m pretending,_  
_When I try to have an answer;_  
_It’s not what I intended,_  
_And I don’t know what comes after;_

 _There’s still those two thoughts,_  
_One after the other:_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not;_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not…”_

 _“I’m alone, no you’re not;_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not…_

Dan sang a little louder, trying to lift Holly’s courage. She wasn’t looking at him, her back to him from the hearth, but her voice was lifted, a little prouder and more confident. 

_“I’m alone, no you’re not;_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not…_

 _“I’m alone, no you’re not;_  
_I’m alone, no you’re not…_

Dan let the last chord hang in the air and disappear into the silence, and the two of them didn’t move or speak for a moment.

“Did you write that?” Holly asked. 

Dan nodded. “It doesn’t play very well in a tavern. They prefer things with shipwrecks and sneaking out to woo lasses and all that. But I like it.” 

“I do, too.” Holly put a new log on the fire before standing up. “Do you… spend a lot of time alone?” 

“A bit,” Dan said. “My friends live rather far away. That’s where I was headed, to see them, before…” He made a vague hand gesture in the air. “But sometimes it’s easy to feel alone even when there are people around.” 

Holly made an agreeable sound, although Dan got the suspicion that, the way she was, she didn’t – couldn't – feel alone when other people were around her. 

“Do you know what comes after?” she asked, which sounded cryptic at first blush, but Dan understood her meaning well enough. 

Dan sighed, playing another idle chord. “No,” he admitted. He didn’t know how long it would be before he felt healthy enough to take to the road again, if he even could from where he was. All he could see of where he was came through Holly’s single square window by the front door, and it looked like forest for miles around. 

Then again, even a generous and amenable tiefling would get sick of him eventually, especially if they’d taken to hermitude for a reason. 

“Well, you can stay as long as you need,” Holly said, as if the prospect made her a bit nervous but she was going to forge ahead. “Or as you like.” 

That seemed to take both of them by surprise, and Holly’s pale skin flushed all the way down her neck. “I, uh, I just meant–” 

“Right, of course,” Dan said, a little flustered himself. He stared at his lute, willing it to do… to do what, he wasn’t sure. 

The silence for the rest of the evening was still companionable, but it had a thread of something in it that hadn’t been there before. 

Supper was stew, heartier this time, and Dan realized that there was meat in it. He spied the bones of something in the pot that he couldn’t quite identify. 

“You can’t get by on vegetables alone if you’re going to get better,” Holly said by way of an answer, before Dan could even ask. “It’s a waste to go hunting when it’s only me and Feathers, but I don’t mind it. It’s the way of things out here, you know?” 

Dan did, a bit, but not as well as Holly. “You’re an excellent cook.” 

“I do alright,” Holly deferred. 

“Is there anything you’ll accept compliments about?” Dan said, gently teasing. 

“I’ll let you know if I think of something,” Holly replied archly, but she was smiling, canines just barely visible. She cleared their plates and Dan got up and drew the curtains as the sun set. Dan tried to judge where they were based on where it dipped below the horizon, but the trees were too numerous and he wasn’t a particularly good navigator. 

When Dan caught Holly arranging a heap of blankets, clothes and rags to make a facsimile of a bedroll, he cleared his throat conspicuously. “Look, I. That is, if you think I’m being forward, that’s your right. But I’d hate to see you sleeping on the floor on my account. And since you feel the same, which is totally unnecessary–” 

“Alright.”

Dan stopped mid-sentence. “Oh. Um. Good. I’m glad.” 

They both puttered awkwardly for a few more hours, both a little wary of what they’d just agreed to, even if they had agreed to it. Dan continued playing various melodies on his lute, occasionally writing some words down in a small leather journal, just in case. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Holly get out a journal of her own, and a small set of watercolor cakes and a small paintbrush. She seemed truly at ease, for the first time Dan could recall, and the energy in the house was pleasant and comfortable again again. 

Finally, when the moon was high in the sky and they’d finished a pot of mellow, herbal tea between them, there was nothing left to do but take their rest. Feathers took off for his corner of the rafters, in a nest made of fabric scraps wedged into the corner. He’d finally stopped staring at Dan, which felt nice in its way. 

He dared to make one last trip to the outhouse before bed, and Holly had changed into a dressing gown, clearly handsewn. She’d taken some of the blankets outside to beat the devil (or the dust, in this case) out of them, and piled them up on the foot of the bed. The hearth was burning low, orange light casting long shadows on the animal skulls and 

“So,” she said, after a moment. Her hands were fidgeting, and she didn’t seem to want to look Dan in the eye. 

Dan had already spent some time getting comfortable and making room on the tiny bed for a second person, so he patted the empty space next to him. “I still don’t have any plans to start screaming.”

“If you say so.” Holly sat down on the edge of the bed and swung her legs over, and there they were, the two of them side by side in a bed barely big enough for one. Dan hadn’t noticed before that his legs dangled off the edge almost up to his shins. It was easy to not notice things you weren’t worried about, he thought, as he burrowed into the blankets and closed his eyes. 

“Dan?” 

Holly’s voice was so quiet, Dan thought he’d imagined it, but he opened his eyes just to be sure. She was looking right back at him, and it might have just been the fire light, or his vivid imagination, but he could swear they were glowing. 

“It feels terrible to say,” she said softly, “but I’m glad I found you. For all of the obvious reasons, but also because… it’s nice to not be alone.” 

Without saying anything, Dan wrapped his arms around Holly’s waist and pulled her close, which startled a small noise out of her, and after forswearing up, down and sideways that he was going to respect her boundaries and behave himself, there was nothing for him to do but kiss her. 

She tasted a little like brimstone and pastries fresh from a baker’s oven, like wild things that crept along the forest floor and petrichor before sunrise. She kissed him back, her hands tangling into his hair, and he could swear he saw stars. 

Their hearts were beating together, pounding in the same rapid rhythm. When Dan opened his eyes again, Holly’s horns and hair looked like a crown, and he could see for certain that her eyes _were_ glowing back at him. The instinct to fight, or at least flee, rose up in the back of his throat and he swallowed it down. 

There was nothing to fear here, Dan knew. What could you fear, after all, when you were no longer alone?

**Author's Note:**

> "Dan's" lyrics shamefully stolen from "Honest" by Joseph, available wherever fine music is sold, streamed or stolen.


End file.
